Firing - Publications - Faculty & Research

06 Aug 2021
Book

Steve Jobs and the Rise of the Celebrity CEO

successively by John Sculley, who was kicked out in 1993, Michael Spindler, fired in 1996, and Gil Amelio, a member of the board who took over from Spindler and was fired five hundred days later, the company... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

03 Jan 2023
Book

Confront Workplace Inequity in 2023: Dig Deep, Build Bridges, Take Collective Action

intelligence that the company relied on, which led to friction with Google executives. Ultimately, they were both fired from Google, but brought visibility to these issues in the field. Similarly, actresses Jessica Chastain and Octavia... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

12 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Investors Often Lose When They Sue Their Financial Adviser

will make more money if I look industry-friendly,’” Egan says. To be sure, some arbitrators are more likely to support consumers, including the 11 percent of arbitrators who were previously fired as advisers by their firms. But these... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

authority over the entire canal project, including the right to fire commission members. Secretary of War William Howard Taft had doubts about the legality of granting the chief engineer control over the commission, which was technically... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

17 Jan 2023
Book

Good Companies Commit Crimes, But Great Leaders Can Prevent Them

later gets reported, then the company can say, “We addressed it, we fired the people involved, we created systems so it wouldn't happen again.” Lambert: What changes are you seeing in corporate liability law? Soltes: Companies are... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

12 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

Using the Law to Strategic Advantage

encourage general managers to bring counsel in early in the decision-making cycle; they should not wait until the last minute to fight a fire that has already started or to bless a deal that has already been struck. The available options... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Legal Services

01 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

Team Success Starts with the Individual—and with Love

with winning. His expectation that everyone will work hard and strive to perform at their best serves as a foundation for firing up intrinsic motivation among team members. But Carroll couples that expectation with a soft touch. He calls... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Sports

19 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Birth of the American Salesman

and war. The play revealed the cruelty of a system of capitalism based entirely on salesmanship, in which bosses hired and fired people when they were no longer effective. "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away. A man is... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

30 Apr 2020
Book

Fighting Climate Change Requires a New Capitalism

Rebecca Henderson spent her young adult years living two lives. At work, she preached the risks of resisting change to MBA students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, drawing on lessons she learned while watching factories close as a management consultant.... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Energy

11 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard

strategy and operations (or tactics) are both important but they are different. The normal course of events is for companies to focus on day-to-day operations and short-term problem solving. Management meetings focus on fighting fires and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

20 Feb 2020
Op-Ed

Love in the Office Is Wonderful. Except for CEOs.

string of firings of big corporate CEOs who had “inappropriate relationships” included the chief executives of McDonald’s, Priceline Group, Lockheed Martin, Best Buy, and countless others. In truth, the terminations were not over... View Details

Keywords: by Regina Herzlinger

04 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Shackleton: An Entrepreneur of Survival

the form of the First World War. In a strange, sad twist of fate, two of the Endurance crew would be killed in the war. Imagine the extraordinary irony of having survived all that, only to be slaughtered by machine gun fire in the first... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Fix This! Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?

call after the dealer initially turned him down. Then he had to wait hours while his new car was prepped, bank check accepted, documents signed, registration obtained and the other thousand details that make buying a car feel like a belly-crawl under enemy View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Auto

05 Feb 2018
What Do You Think?

Should Companies Disclose Employee Compensation?

reshoot scenes in All the Money in the World after star Kevin Spacey was in essence fired following accusations of previous sexual misconduct. Christopher Plummer was hired to replace Spacey and reshoot scenes with co-stars Mark Wahlberg... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

25 Jan 2017
HBS Case

How Should Advertisers Respond to Consumer Demand for Whiter Skin?

think of the role of advertising as providing primes that are psychological in nature as a means of persuasion, you can take something that exists in society—a consumer preference for fair skin—and leverage it for good or for bad.” Advertisements under View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Beauty & Cosmetics

15 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Americans Voted for an Income Tax

who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives: our school teachers, fire fighters, people who build roads. We need those things You really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things. But, you know, we pay... View Details

Keywords: by Matthew C. Weinzierl

03 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

owed $130,000 in sales commissions for the work he had done prior to being fired from the firm a few months earlier. The executive, on the other hand, claimed the employee was owed nothing—in fact, he insisted the employee had been... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra & Max H. Bazerman

03 Dec 2014
What Do You Think?

Can the Brilliant Jerk Be Managed Effectively?

Huang: "I would talk to them about their behaviors to find out if they are actually aware of it I would also make peer appraisal part of their year end bonus." Gerald Nanninga commented that "perhaps you are giving them the wrong numbers to hit."... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

15 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: It Takes a Village

impressive. Whether your own system is modeled on unitary or team leadership, you need to design, structure and allocate leadership roles. We'll turn to this in my article next month. Other Articles In This Series Managing the Family Business: Leadership Roles Managing... View Details

10 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

How to Get Companies to Make Investments That Benefit Everyone

activity and put in place collective governance. By contrast, Nagle argues, the Amazon rainforest is subject to control by a gatekeeper—Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, who must weigh national politics with environmental protections when confronting challenges such... View Details